4.12.2010

So...how 'bout those elections?

With lines of voters hunkered down for hours on makeshift benches or sheltering under trees from the baking sun, Sudan's complex and controversial elections got off to an often chaotic start.

Officials had spent months preparing for the polls, but confusion soon erupted on Sunday as centre after centre, sometimes hours into the voting, discovered that voters were using the wrong ballot papers or that names or symbols of candidates were either missing or incorrect.

Given that votes are being cast for two presidents, 24 governors and 26 state and national assemblies, using three different voting systems and up to 12 ballots, things were bound to go awry.

...It was a novel experience for many voters, and for election officials.

Some were too nervous to ask voters to dip their fingers fully into indelible green ink -- used to show that people had cast their votes -- and had to be reminded of the rules.

Quite which ballot papers to use also posed a problem for some election officials.